


Colours I Can't See With Anyone Else

by daffodildancing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cheating, Depression, Drinking, Drugs, F/M, Heartbreak, Language, Prejudice, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, but also like please help, got the idea to do t swift james because of downn_in_flames, literally inspired by taylor swift, not sure who our little bethel will end up with yet, will probably add more tags at some point in time, wrote this in like one sitting with one bottle of wine so don't judge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:27:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26938141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daffodildancing/pseuds/daffodildancing
Summary: i would ruin myself a million little times"For a girl that grew up so unwanted in every facet of life – an Irish Catholic school girl walking through a battlefield, a muggleborn witch in a culture of magical blood-purity, a second choice to a boy that made my heart beat and then skip and then fade – I had no idea how to bury the pain. I should be used to this. I should be immune to this kind of hurt. I slide my ankles under my bum, propping myself up on my shins. I should be, but I’m not. It all still hurts."
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, James Potter/Original Female Character(s), Sirius Black/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	1. Betty, I won't make assumptions

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Harry Potter or any of these characters, that is all J.K. Rowling who I'm not sure actually deserves these wonderful characters or my love. However, here I am, writing my first HP fanfiction in what could possibly be a decade. Not sure this is fully fledged, but I am a little day-drunk and here it goes.

_London, 1978. The Crocodile Club._

I am drunk. No, not drunk. Pissed, perhaps. Whatever is just over the threshold of being drunk is whatever I am.

I know that the muscles of my calves will ache tomorrow from the height of my heels. I know that my head will throb when I finally lift it off of the pillow in the morning. My eyes will be sore from the thick makeup and glitter around them. Inevitably, I will be covered in fat, purply bruises.

But, I don’t think about that.

All I think about is the sway of my hips, the beat of the music, and the amber liquid in my glass. Since the war had started, I frequented this muggle bar. It felt good to feel ignorant, even if it was just for a night and heavily influenced by alcohol. The whiskey in my glass didn’t taste the same as the firewhiskey I’d become accustomed to, but it worked just the same. The people around me weren’t grim-faced, weren’t whispering to each other about the dangers to come, weren’t white-knuckled gripping their wands in case something happened. They were just muggles. They didn’t know any better.

I’d joined the Order of the Phoenix after school, wanting to contribute, wanting to fight. It had only been two months, four meetings, and there was nothing that I could really do to help. The overwhelming weight of trying to save all of mankind from a faceless villain was starting to take its toll. I found this bar after one particularly troubling meeting, and it’s been somewhat of a refuge ever since.

There were times when I felt utterly alone. Even now, with an unnamed muggle man’s hands on my hips, I don’t feel any less alone. My freehand slid down to the hem of my dress, beaded and sheer, to pick it up a fraction as I twisted to the music.

_Are you a lucky little lady in the city of light?_ The muggle - and Jim Morrison - sing in my ear as I bring the almost empty glass up to my lips to drain the remainder in one single gulp. My throat burns, pleasantly, and I make my way back to the bar for another, leaving my muggle by himself on the dancefloor.

My forearms are resting heavily on the bar, waiting to be served, when I see _them_. For a second, I am taken aback by the sight of them in this muggle bar, but I don’t allow my face to change in the slightest. Internally, my chest tightens and my breath hitches. Externally, I try to stay indifferent.

I had seen the two of them – with their two counterparts - at Order meetings, but we didn’t speak. I hadn’t really spoken to any of them – _to him_ – since the summer before seventh year. When everything had turned to shit. When I fled Potter Manor in tears and almost splinched myself trying to drunkenly apparate before I was even legally able to. If I closed my eyes, I could still hear him, yelling my name as I tripped over the roots in his front lawn. If I closed my eyes, I can still see the image of his hands snaked into her red hair, burnt into the backs of my eyelids. I can still feel the clench of my heart, the flip of my stomach, and my nails digging into my palms when I began to process what I was seeing.

My eyes fly open and I have to grip the edge of the bar to ground myself. It’s over. It’s over and I have moved on. The ache in my chest begs to differ, the alcohol on my breath does not. My hand flies up to signal the bartender and – to my horror – my voice shakes as I order another three fingers of Jameson. He refills my glass and surreptitiously slides a shot glass of clear liquor my way. My eyes level with him as I mouth a “thank you” and throw my head back to take the drink. It burns my throat and my eyes go black and fuzzy for a second before they clear. _Just what I needed._

The thick glass makes a satisfying “clink” against the wood and I immediately know that I have two pairs of eyes on me. I can actually feel their stares. For a moment, I am frozen; a deer in headlights. I am drunk, my tongue feels thick in my mouth, and for a brief moment I am actually scared that I might cry. I am not usually a sad drunk. But then again, I don’t usually see the man that broke my heart. 

_No._ I decide. _No, I will not be this girl._

My only hope is that as I let my eyes slide in their direction, my face remains as passive as I want them to think I am. My heart beats dramatically in my chest, letting me know that _yes, I am still alive_ and that _yes it still hurts to see his face._

I had avoided that face in the Gryffindor common room for the past year. I avoided that face as I slid into the back of an Order meeting, making no noise so as not to alert him, _or her_ for that matter, that I was there. But here I was, staring into that face once again.

His hair – always – was messy and charming, his lips were set into a straight line, and his glasses were perched precariously low on his nose. His _fucking_ hazel eyes were peering at me from across the bar, along with his ever-brooding friend, and I could see that his knuckles were white around the neck of his beer bottle.

It took him approximately three breaths (approximately because for one moment I think I forgot to remember to breathe) before his body swiveled in his chair and his long legs made their way over to me. I could, again, blame it on being drunk, but the way my stomach sank as he came closer let me know that, _no,_ this was just that heartbreak rearing its ugly head again.

“Betty,” He started, his voice that deep treble I remembered it to be.

“ _You_ don’t get to call me that.” I all but hissed at him, cutting him off.

His eyebrows furrowed, briefly, before he sighed, coming to sit next to me on the vacant barstool.

“ _Bethel._ ” He tried again, and I nodded in appreciation. “How are you? I think I’ve seen you at some Order meetings, but you never stay very long, so I haven’t gotten the chance to speak to you.”

I can’t help the snort that comes out of my nose as I begin to literally word-vomit at the boy. “I wonder why that is, Potter? I wonder, could it be… that I’m actually trying very hard to avoid you? Going out of my way to not talk to you, or your girlfriend, or your mates? Could it have possibly gotten into that thick head of yours that I don’t want to see your face?”

Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting, but between my thumping heart and my drunken lips, it wasn’t the worst thing that I could have said.

We’re silent for a beat. I’m staring at my shoes – he’s staring at me. Again, I will myself not to cry.

“Why didn’t you stop when I called your name?” James finally asks, his voice quiet.

I cock my head to look at him. It’s been a year, but he hasn’t changed. He still has those hazel eyes, those thick lashes, and those red lips that I knew would positively swell up after a long, good snog. For exactly two seconds, I feel like my sixteen-year-old self, holding his hand, looking at his baby pictures with his mother, making plans for our future. But, it faded when I thought of _just why_ I didn’t stop when he called my name.

“Lily.” I said, plain and simple, and took a long drink of my whiskey.

James opens his mouth to answer, but no words come out. He closes it, jaw set in a hard line and he fidgets with his beer bottle. The silence is practically suffocating. My eyes slide over the exit and I think about making a break for it when I see Sirius Black approach us from the corner of my eye.

His hand clamps down on my shoulder, roughly, but not unkindly. “Bethel Joyce, as I live and breathe.” He leans in to kiss my cheek, prompting a furious blush to bloom from my neck up onto my face. “How is it that you got even more ravishing since the last time I saw you?”

I roll my eyes at the boy, all too aware of his personality to read anything into his charms. When James and I were together, it felt like I was the fifth Marauder. They were all my friends too – especially Sirius. Where there was James, there was Sirius, and for a long while, where there was James, there was me, too. But when I left the Manor that night, I left the three boys there too. I hadn’t spoken to any of them. I purposely ignored their owls, their voices, and eventually they stopped trying. I can only imagine that this interaction tonight is happening under some serious liquid courage – and I don’t mean Felix Felicis.

Luckily enough, I have also acquired some whiskey courage of my own and I reach out to swipe the cigarette Sirius is smoking. Taking a deep drag, I meet his eyes, finally answering his rhetorical question. “A new diet of whiskey, dick, and cigarettes. That worked for you in school, right?”

Sirius actually snorts, grinning wolfishly at me, but James makes a noise of indignance. I turn my head to look at him and he is drinking heavily from his beer bottle. His eyes stared almost _through_ me from behind his glasses as he slammed the bottle down onto the bar.

“Class, kid.” James tells me, eyes narrowed, voice harsh and husky. “Honestly, Betty, that’s really, just… just _cracker_.”

Sirius blew air out of his mouth, a quick and surprised _huff_ and ran his free hand through his hair. I puffed on his cigarette for a moment, my eyes flicking between the two boys I had never expected to ever see again – never wanted to see.

I make up my mind in one second – fuck these guys. I grab my bag off the bar and hopped off of the stool, legs wobbling as my feet met the hard floor. “ _Fuck you,”_ I point my fingers at the bespectacled boy, words burning my tongue like venom. I open my mouth to tell them both off, to tell them to never speak to me again, but the words get caught in my throat and for the third time I am terrified I will cry. “Fuck you, James.” I say again, my voice significantly softer this time.

Unwilling to look anywhere but at my shoes, I push past Sirius and make my way towards the exit, fingers gripping so tightly to my stolen cigarette that I think I might have actually crushed it. My breath is caught in my throat still, unwilling to fill my lungs. I walk, robotically, to the back door and as soon as I have it pushed it open, I am gasping for air, tears streaming down my cheeks. The alcohol hits me all at once, hanging over me like a wet blanket as I my legs give out and my knees shred against the asphalt. Sirius’s cigarette falls to the ground and I try to ground myself, try not to actually start to sob in this dirty, dark London alley.

I want to apparate. I want to go home – to my parent’s home. I want to be ten, lying next to my mother in my tiny twin bed. Before I knew what magic was, before I’d ever met that infuriating boy, before I knew anything. Back then, the only thing I had to worry about was being a Catholic in Northern Ireland. For a girl that grew up so unwanted in every facet of life – an Irish Catholic school girl walking through a battlefield, a muggleborn witch in a culture of magical blood-purity, a second choice to a boy that made my heart beat and then skip and then fade – I had no idea how to bury the pain. I should be used to this. I should be immune to this kind of hurt. I slide my ankles under my bum, propping myself up on my shins. I should be, but I’m not. It all still hurts.

It’s like I still don’t know how to exist. I still feel like I have no home – like I am just a ghost in my own life. Sometimes, I fantasize about what would have happened if I had just blown apart as a wain or met with a fiery green spell in my ventures in Wizarding London, or just had a drink too many and wandered through the streets in my pub clothes.

I suddenly feel a pair of hands hook themselves underneath my arms and I am lifted back onto my feet. The hands wrap around my stomach, pulling me tightly into whomever, and I feel their chin on top of my head. For a second, I still, scared that I have just manifested my own demise. But, then, I recognize that smell. It hurts, to be in _his_ embrace like this, so familiar and comforting. With a chest-wracking sob, I turn in his arms and I press my face to his chest. 

“Betty,” James breathes into my ear. “Betty, it’s okay, I have you, it’s okay.”

It is equally comforting and heartbreaking. I don’t have the strength to push away. I don’t have the courage to look up at him. I just bury my face in his white shirt, mascara smudging its perfection, and tighten my arms around his middle.

I hear him whispering but I can’t quite make out what he’s saying through the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. But as he turns us, swiftly, I feel the familiar pull around my navel as I am pulled through space. And then, my eyes close.

***

_Notting Hill, 1978. 77 Lancaster Rd, Number 4B_

I awake with a hammering in my head. My eyes feel like they might pop out of my skull from the pressure that has built itself up behind my forehead. It feels like I’ve submerged my head in a fish tank.

I lay still for a moment, trying to remember what happened last night but my mind is completely blank. I start to feel my throat close, my mouth becoming wet, and my stomach lurches. I jump up, eyes opening only when my feet land on the carpet and stand on swaying feet until I stumble through into an unfamiliar hallway and use my hands to navigate myself to a bathroom. I wretch what can only be described as pure whiskey and tequila.

I rest my head on the lip of the bathtub after I’ve wandlessly vanished the proof of last night’s sin. I still can’t remember anything, but I no longer feel like I want to die. I stand on shaky knees to grip the sink and stare at my reflection. My hair is knotted and tied up in a high ponytail. My mascara is halfway down my cheeks and there is glitter all over my face. I’m completely naked and there are bruises blooming along my upper shoulders, collarbones, and down my shins and calves. My knees are scabbed and ache as the skin stretches and relaxes.

Resisting the urge to wallow in my misery, I grab _a stranger’s_ toothpaste and use it to scrub my teeth with my finger. I spit, vehemently, in the sink and vow to never drink again, to never wake up in an unfamiliar flat, when there’s a soft knock at the door. I am still naked, still bare and sick, but I swallow my pride and crack the door open.

When my eyes register the messy hair and glasses, I slam the door closed.

“No… _no_ , no, no…” I all but wail as I slide down the door. This can’t be happening to me.

“Betty, please, open the door.” James’s muffled voices calls through the door.

“It’s _Bethel!”_ I instinctively snap, coming out of my hysteria, and scramble back up to a standing position.

I yank the door open again, staring at the wide eyes of the teenage boy in front of me. I try not to think about the fact that I am completely stark, eyes rimmed with red, and that I have just vomited into my ex-boyfriend’s toilet. James’s eyes flick downward for a millisecond before they meet my own.

“What is happening, Potter?” I ask him, pushing past him to try to find whatever bed I’d woken up in. “Where am I? Why am I here?” I find my discarded dress on the threshold of – what I can only assume is – his room. I quickly force it over my head and pick up my wand. Shoes and purse be damned, this is enough to apparate home and try to scrub my memory. Perhaps with some Jameson in my coffee.

James is suddenly standing in front of me, hands gripping my forearms, pulling me closer to him. “You are Betty. You will always be Betty to me – _my Betty._ ” He pulls me to him, my face slammed against his bare chest as my arms dangle awkwardly by my side. I let myself stay there for the span of one breath before I violently wrench myself from his grasp.

“I am not _your anything_. You lost the right to call me Betty last summer.” I step away from him, eyes narrowed as I survey him. “I don’t know what happened, but I’m going home. Leave. Me. Alone.”

I turn and practically sprint through his flat, trying to just reach the front door so I can breathe normally again and get myself out of this hell. But, James – taller and faster than me – is at my side before I can pull the door open. His hand grasps, tightly, around my wrist and he yanks me back.

“For fuck’s sake, woman, will you just let me fucking speak to you?” He is screaming at me now, pushing me down onto his sofa.

“WHAT, Potter? _What?_ What do you want to speak to me about?” I yell back at him, crossing my arms. “About how you cheated on me with the most perfect girl in our year, how you promised me that you didn’t care about _Lily_ and then let Inez Barnaby tell me that you were snogging her in your bedroom? We dated for _three years_ and you threw me away for that girl? Are you telling me that it was a mistake? That you didn’t mean to kiss her? That it was all a big mistake?” I am practically out of breath by now, screaming at James.

“Yes, Bethel.” He kneels in front of me. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Can we please… can we please just talk?”

And then the world as I knew it imploded.


	2. I think it's 'cause of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Masochist I may be; fool I am not.

***

_Potter Manor, Wales, 1976._

I am laughing so hard that I actually might faint. James’s fingers dig into my flesh, tickling me mercilessly on the lush green grass in his front lawn. My dress has hitched itself up around my hips and I can feel the blush on my cheeks as I beg him to release me, which he finally does, only to lay down next to me on the grass, threading his fingers through my hair while I pant, trying to catch my breath. 

Suddenly, James is staring intensely at me, propping himself up on one elbow. 

“I love you, Betty Joyce.” 

My breath hitches in my throat and his hands come forward to grasp at my forearms. Suddenly, my face is an inch away from his own. His hazel eyes are like melted honey staring into my own and I am drowning. 

“You,” I start, but the words feel thick in my throat. “You love me?” 

We’d been together for some time now, almost a year and a half, in fact, but this was still unexpected. I knew that I loved James three weeks after we started dating, when he bought me a new quill because my parents had sent me pens in the post to replace my broken one. I knew that I loved him when he showed me where the kitchens were one night, asking the elves to bring me soda bread and jam – my favorite. I knew that I loved him when he sought me out after Gryffindor had won the Quidditch cup, lifting me off my feet and twirling me around. 

But I never expected him to love me back. 

It was always supposed to be Lily. I knew that, everyone else knew that, and I thought – I _think_ – he knows that too. Lily was the girl that he was supposed to be with. And when I stared at myself in the reflection of my mirror, willing my blonde hair to redden, willing my blue eyes to turn green… I figured, well, it was only a matter of time before he realized it too. 

But here he is, in front of me, watching me with hooded eyes and smiling at me and telling me that _he loves me._

“Of course, Bethel.” His voice is gentle and sweet. “I love you.” 

Warmth spreads through my chest, but it does nothing to melt the permanent knot in my stomach.

***

_Potter Manor, Wales, 1977._

It was almost my birthday, it was almost seventh year – and I was almost drunk. 

I’d not been at the manor for all of five minutes before Sirius Black shoved a drink in my hand and a fag between my lips, lighting it with the tip of his wand like the gentleman he was. 

Now, I’m sitting cross legged on the deck, watching Sirius, Remus, and Peter try to balance spoons on their noses. James is sitting next to me, arm wrapped loosely around my waist. Everything was perfect – was magic – except for the weight in my stomach that felt like a boulder, pinning me to the spot. The ball of nerves and stress that never, ever seemed to dissipate, no matter how hard I tried, froze me where I sat. 

She was here too. And that was fine, I told myself. Over and over again. Like a mantra. That was fine. They were friends. And that was fine. I would not be the kind of girl who refused to let her boyfriend have friends of the opposite sex. I couldn’t be that kind of girl. 

But fuck me if I wasn’t terrified over the prospect. 

Lily is sitting across from us, legs crossed, cheeks pink, and lips wide in a smile as she laughs at something James says. _I_ can barely hear anything that James saying over the music and chit chat that’s spilling out of his house, so her laughter irks me. 

There has been a pressure, building up inside of me: it fills my lungs with acrid air, it fuzzes the corners of my brain, it pins my feet to the Earth. I’m not yet seventeen, I’m not even an adult, and already the world is making it hard for me to breathe – to exist. The pressure has been building up for the better half of a year and it has filled me with existential dread every waking moment since Lucius Malfoy told me that my _dirty, muddy, muggle family_ would meet their ends. 

And what do I do with that? Do I tell my Fenian, God-fearing muggle parents that in addition to the possibility of being caught in the crossfire of sectarian war, they might also be attacked simply for not being magic – or, as they see it, an abomination against God? Since the moment I made a daisy appear in my open palm as a wain, they have seen me as little more than a sin; a stain on the Joyce family bible. I am not the son that they wanted, nor am I the Catholic schoolgirl that they wanted, either. I am a witch, an outcast, and if I weren’t a Catholic, perhaps they would publicly shame me as The Disappointment of Derry. 

So, my choices are: to live in the muggle world, take up arms, and defend my right to be a Catholic, Irish, breeder of a woman. Or, I can stay in the wizarding world, take up arms, and defend my right to be a witch regardless of the “pureness” of my blood. Truthfully, I’ve never been one for fighting. My cowardice makes it quite surprising that I was placed in Gryffindor. 

Like, I said. I am sixteen years-old and it is already incredibly hard for me to exist. Instead of my two choices, I have chosen to stand idly by, feet glued to the ground, and gasp for air. 

Despite the constant stress and fear and absolute _pain_ that these choices bring me, what hurts the most right now, in this very moment, is the way that James Potter is looking at Lily Evans. 

I flick my cigarette off of the deck and stand abruptly, knocking James’s arm off of my waist. I mutter my excuses quickly and stumble through the door on heavy feet. There it is again – that feeling, like I can’t get enough oxygen in my lungs. Like I am gasping but nothing is there. A fish out of water. A girl with a fish tank for lungs. 

Dodging classmates and friends, I lock myself in the loo and stare at my reflection. My hands grip the sink and I count inhales – _one, two, three_ – and exhales – _four, five, six, seven_ – over and over until my breathing has returned to normal. 

“Good God, woman, get yourself together,” I mutter at the pale-faced craven staring back at me in the mirror. “Breathe, for fuck’s sake.” 

A series of sharp knocks interrupts my self-deprecation, followed by a soft, “ _Betty?_ ” 

I inhale, deeply, and exhale, fully, before I open the bathroom door and stand face-to-chest with Sirius Black. He is smoking, letting his cigarette dangle from his lips and he’s holding a bottle of Ogden’s Old in his hands, but most importantly – he is staring at me with the most pitying eyes I have ever seen. And I’d seen quite a few. 

“No one should be alone and sad on their birthday.” Sirius cracks a smile and raises the firewhiskey in his hands. 

“It’s not my birthday,” I can’t help but smile back as I grab the bottle from him and pass by him into the hallway. “And I’m not alone.”

***

Three cups of Ogden’s, four cigarettes, and two impromptu and quite early ‘Happy Birthday’s sung to me and The Maurauders and I are pleasantly drunk. James is nowhere to be seen, but I’m too drunk to think anything into it.

“ _Oi!_ Joyce!” A voice interrupts our giggles, shrill and grating. 

I turn my head to see Inez Barnaby genuinely running towards me. Her blonde curls are bouncing wildly, her lips already split into a smirk, which tells me she’s got some serious gossip to deliver. 

Already feeling annoyed, I groan audibly. “What is it this time, Inez?” I flick the ash off my cigarette in her direction. “Who did you catch shagging in a closet?” 

Having lived with Inez for the better part of six years, I’ve learned that she is a salacious gossip intent on making everyone’s private matters public. Despite the fondness I’ve managed to find for her – proximity breeds affection, apparently – the cogs of her gossip wheel still do not sit well with me. 

The blonde giggles and bends down so that her lips are by my ear. “Tell me, Bethel – have you seen James?”

My stomach drops immediately, like this moment was something I had been waiting for since the beginning. And maybe it was. My head is rather fuzzy, with the whiskey and the nicotine, but it feels like I already immediately know what is happening. Sirius, who is sitting next to me, trades looks with Remus and Peter. Though Inez whispered it, everyone heard. And now everyone was staring at me, eyes hooded with pity. 

“I don’t think you should go.” Remus tells me, reaching for my hand as I start to stand up. “I’m sure Barnaby is just talking shit, as always.” The sentiment does not reach his voice. He knows. 

I turn to look at my boyfriend’s three best friends – my three best friends – and realize that they are all wearing identical looks of shame. Had they just distracted me while James did _whatever it was he was doing_? 

My feet feel like cinder blocks as I start towards the door, brushing off Remus’s hands and holding up a finger to silence Peter’s open mouth. I can no longer hear the noise of the party, only the beat of my heart in my ears. I’m vaguely aware that Sirius is behind me, trying to pull me back. I merely shove out of his grip, on autopilot as I walk through the den and into the hallway. 

His door is closed and my eyes go into a sort of tunnel vision as I let my hand hover over the door, poised to knock. Sirius is saying something next to me, trying to persuade me, but I can’t even really hear him. My hand drops to the knob and without hesitation, I jerk the door open. 

She’s there. 

In his room. 

On the bed where I sleep with him. 

His hands are wound around her hair, tilting her chin back so that he can pepper kisses on her neck – the way he did to my own. Her shirt is unbuttoned, his is on the floor, and she’s halfway in his lap, running her hands down his chest. They don’t seem to notice the opened door or the light that fills the dark room, or my presence in the doorway. 

But they do notice the sob that wrenches free from my lips. 

James’s eyes snap to mine, followed by Lily who has to turn around to see what’s happened. Everything freezes for a single second. The air itself ceases to exist. I am gasping for breath, stepping back into the hallway, eyes wide and focused on James. He stands up, dropping Lily from his lap and onto the ground, and starts to walk towards me. 

Sirius steps in front of me, shielding my body from James and begins to talk, but still, I cannot hear anything other than the _thump_ of my heart, burning in my chest, drowning out the sound. I don’t even wait to hear an explanation, I don’t even look back as I turn on my heel and run for the front door. 

The cool night air smashes against my face as I sprint through the front yard, trying to get past the wards of the manor. I see Remus and Peter, talking to Inez, but I don’t stop when they look my way. 

It’s like my head has been lifted out from a basin. I hear the wind rush past my ears, I hear my feet hit the grass and dodge the roots as I run as fast as I can towards the hedges. 

And I hear James’s voice, yelling out my name from behind, as I turn swiftly and pray to whoever is listening that I don’t splinch myself in his front yard.

_“Betty!”_

***

_Notting Hill, 1978. 77 Lancaster Rd, Number 4B_

James is staring at me with a startlingly familiar expression, sitting on his knees in front of me.

It’s the face he made when I opened that door that night. It’s the face he made when he saw me come undone. 

I had known. I had always known. Lily was the one. It was always going to be Lily. I had even accepted that. But, for a brief window of time, laying in the grass at his house, listening to him list the ways and reasons that _he_ loved _me_ , I allowed myself to believe that maybe it wouldn’t be Lily – maybe it would be me. And though that thought lingered in the back of my head – that James belonged with Lily – I let myself believe that I could have him. And when my fears came to fruition, it shattered my heart. 

Masochist I may be; fool I am not. 

When it becomes apparent that I won’t talk, James sighs heavily and removes his glasses to pinch at the bridge of his nose. 

“It _was_ a mistake, Bethel. I promise you, it was a mistake. I was drunk and alone and she was there and it just… it just happened.” 

The noise that comes out of my throat is automatic and pitiful. My hand raises to stop him from speaking. 

“I assure you, James. I do not need to know what happened. I was there for some of it, if you don’t remember.” I tell him, voice small and meek. “If it was a mistake, why are you still with her?” 

“Because you were _gone_ , Bethel! You refused to speak to me. You just left without letting me explain.” He’s angry, I realize. He’s angry at me because I didn’t stick around to talk. Because I ran. 

My hands act without direction. I slap James across the face, the sting of my skin on his satisfying and painful. I raise my hand to do it again, but James snatches hold of my wrist, pinning my forearm to my shoulder. 

“You don’t get to be mad.” I all but wail at him, shoulders shaking. “ _You_ don’t get to be mad at _me_.” 

“Betty, stop telling me what _I get to feel_.” He whispers, voice thick and scratchy. 

What ensues next reminds me of the staring contests my cousin and I had as wains when we got into an argument. When I know that I’m right and he knows that he’s right and neither of us is willing to budge or blink or breathe. A heavy minute passes between us, silent but tense. And then he speaks. 

“And it’s not like you and Sirius weren’t together, either.” 

That is not what I expected. 

_But I realized that Lily was perfect and brilliant and beautiful and I had to go for her._  
I realized that you were too difficult, too much trouble, and I moved on.  
I just thought that she might be better than you in bed. 

These were the things that I expected to hear from James Potter. Not an accusation that I shagged his best friend. 

In fact, so unexpected was that statement that a bubble of shrill laughter exploded across my lips, followed by a string of hysterical shaky pants. 

“Sirius?” I can barely say his name, incredulous as I am. “You think that Sirius and I were shagging behind your back?” 

James winces visibly, holding his hand up. “Perhaps not shagging, no, but you can’t tell me that there wasn’t something between you.” 

Incredulity turns to indignance. 

“I bloody well can tell you that there wasn’t something between your best mate and me!” I all but shriek into the open room. “And on top of that – you choose to ruin my life, but keep Sirius as your friend? What kind of fucked up logic is that, Potter?” 

I raise my hand once more to slap the sense into the utterly stupid sad sack in front of me but am interrupted by knocking at the door. 

“So help me God, Potter, if that is Evans, I will _bombarda_ you through this fucking wall.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please review. I say don't be harsh, but, like... y'all, be harsh. Didn't even proof-read this shit.


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